X Sues to Block California Election Deepfake Law 'In Conflict' With First Amendment
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X sued to block a new California law that would require platforms to censor deepfakes about politicians in the lead up to an election

Summary

X, owned by Elon Musk, is suing to block California’s AB 2655, a law requiring social media platforms to remove “materially deceptive content” like deepfakes about politicians within 120 days of an election.

The lawsuit argues the law violates the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, claiming it would lead to broad censorship of political speech to avoid enforcement costs.

A similar California law, AB 2839, was blocked last month for overreaching into constitutionally protected speech, including parody and satire.

AB 2655 is set to take effect in 2024.

  • JustinA
    5·
    1 month ago

    The EU has already implemented a similar law making disinformation illegal.

    Some platforms are also obliged to prevent the dissemination of harmful data, which does not necessarily have to be illegal content under European Union law or the national laws of European Union member states. This is, in particular, the case of online intermediaries that have obtained the status of Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) or Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) because they have an average number of monthly active users in the Union of at least 45 million and have therefore been qualified as such by the European Commission.

    In the light of the DSA regulations, disinformation may potentially constitute primarily two systemic risks defined in the provisions of the Digital Services Act:
    a) the risk relates to an actual or foreseeable negative impact on democratic processes, civic discourse and electoral processes, as well as on public security (recital 82),
    b) the risk relates to an actual or foreseeable negative effect on the protection of public health, minors and serious negative consequences to a person’s physical and mental well-being, or on gender-based violence. Such risks may also stem from coordinated disinformation campaigns related to public health, or from online interface design that may stimulate behavioural addictions of recipients of the service (recital 83).
    In turn, according to Article 37 of the DSA, providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines at their own expense are obliged to undergo independent audits at least once a year to assess their compliance with the obligations set out, inter alia, in point 7 above.

    https://chambers.com/articles/the-digital-services-act-dsa-and-combating-disinformation-10-key-takeaways